Current Events > People who deny tier list in games trigger me

(+) Yeah! (+)

Theres always people that want to argue that anything can be good and it depends on your play style. They just refuse to accept that theres objectively better and worse characters, decks, or whatever the game focuses on. I see it all the time in fighting games, card games, and pretty much any competitive game. Tiers exist not every character is created equal. Yet theres always those who insist every character can be strong and it depends on your playstyle and if you master the character any of them can be strong.

I dont care how good you think you are at kirby in melee the character is trash. Or how good you think your dark magician deck is in yugioh. Because it's not good. And no you wont do good with it because it suits your playstyle
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tiers don't exist
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Tier lists are completely irrelevant to 99% of a game's player base and in many cases are inaccurate for low level play.

For example: grapplers are often low tier but in low level play completely dominate.
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People who live by tier lists amuse me.
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s0nicfan posted...

Tier lists are completely irrelevant to 99% of a game's player base and in many cases are inaccurate for low level play.

For example: grapplers are often low tier but in low level play completely dominate.

Depends on the game. In a card game like yugioh or pokemon thats not true at all. Even at a casual local tournament or just playing with friends a top tier deck will come out on top the vast majority of the time. They just are way stronger than the other decks.

In fighting games at the most casual level then yeah easy to play characters will dominate but that's definitely not 99%. Even as someone who just plays maybe a few days out of the week with only some practice top tier characters will give you an advantage. And with equal level skill on a top tier vs a low tier the top tier will server you better. In most games the best character is not the hardest to play. Sure in melle fox is one of the hardest but shriek, Martha, and to a lesser extent falcon all arent hard to play and can lead to better success than any other character
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Tier whores are much worse, imo.
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tires dont exits
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Zelda_Aran posted...

Tier whores are much worse, imo.

I mean I dont really care what people play but when they insist everything is equally as strong it's annoying. And even the idea that tier's only matter at high levels of play is false. Most top tier characters dominate at all levels of play. In LoL when a champ is broken they normally shine at almost every elo silver and above. Ans silver/gold is definitely not a high threshold for players to make it too
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Tier lists arent a thing in high level fighting game play either. Youll obviously have more entries and representation for the known easy stuff, but the bottom tiers still have their players and matchups in every game.

Look at Kane Blue River in MVC3. Dude plays triple grappler trash and makes you hate him for how OP his application of their limited limited moveset makes them look. This isnt a weirdo showing up every now and then to gimmick people out. This is a guy playing low tier, being analyzed by the best of the best for hours, and still making the one or two tools go all the way.

Tier lists are really only good for making excuses. Theyre REALLY good for that. :)
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Obviously, there's certain ways tiers work. Akuma in SFII? Broken as hell compared to everyone else. Characters with infinite combos that aren't super hard to master? Also broken at most levels.

There's some instances where a character is only "broken" at lower levels of play, because you only need a few hits to get serious damage or else, they can button mash to great effect. *Do the Eddy Gordo* But in higher tiers, even people who mastered those same characters will have a rough time because they usually have some of the more obvious tells, or at least their combo opening moves have hitboxes in the same general area. That's especially true of Eddy Gordo, in Tekken 6 at least he's got like 3 dance stances he can idle in plus his neutral one. His neutral one also only has 3 real openers in to combos, and one is off of a grab... Which connects in the mid zone, same as the other openers. There's exceptions, especially off of recoveries, but that's also why top players with rush characters that can keep Eddy from even getting into a stance at the start of a round can basically shut him down. Again, that's in Tekken 6.

So basically... It all depends.

Now then, we also have tiers like the Dissidia Duodecim tier list. Because of just one move in Ultimecia's kit that can completely cancel like 98% of all moves (and most of those are EX abilities whose hitbox is entirely around the target), she's basically unable to be hit by any whiff at the highest levels of play. And that means poke moves that ARE meant to connect but can stagger the user when blocked also gives her a safe, easy, and reliable way to land hits on the opponent. She's arguably even more broken than Feral Chaos, the Akuma-lite character of the game. But then you have characters like Lightning who are a solid A-, B+ tier pick, because she has a lot of favorable match-ups against most of the cast. But then you have somebody like Squall who doesn't have quite as many favorable ones, BUT the bulk of his favorable matches were ones against the more common tournament characters. So of course, that also kept him as a solid B- to B+ tier hero. Meanwhile characters like Exdeath who were absolutely top tier in the first game (master omniblock and only a few ex abilities could hit him since they affect the field, or ex cancel which can negate damage entirely on most attacks) fell down because the assist gauge could be built up by rapidly whiffing attacks from a distance, in turn giving some characters an amazing way to punish his counter. "I'll use a long range projectile that I don't stagger on when blocked, then the moment he closes in to strike I'll use my assist and if timed right, it'll hit him, cancel his attack, I don't get hit and in a neutral state I can then attack him off of that." But because some characters are screwed in the assist building department, even exdeath can outpace them and punish them in the reverse order, allowing him a favorable outcome.
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Jerry_Hellyeah posted...

Tier lists arent a thing in high level fighting game play either. Youll obviously have more entries and representation for the known easy stuff, but the bottom tiers still have their players and matchups in every game.

Look at Kane Blue River in MVC3. Dude plays triple grappler trash and makes you hate him for how OP his application of their limited limited moveset makes them look. This isnt a weirdo showing up every now and then to gimmick people out. This is a guy playing low tier, being analyzed by the best of the best for hours, and still making the one or two tools go all the way.

Tier lists are really only good for making excuses. Theyre REALLY good for that. :)

There will always be those who dedicate themselves to a bad character and have some level of success however a lot of them end up switching to good characters and do a lot better. If you want a example of why tier's matter watch his 2016 evo finals for MvC2. His grapplers couldn't do shit. Doesnt matter how good he is
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Jerry_Hellyeah posted...

Tier lists arent a thing in high level fighting game play either

They absolutely are a thing

Or would you actually try to convince me that Hakumen, Platinum, and Rachel are just as broken as Ruby, Yuzuriha, and Mitsuru in BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle?

Oh no wait they're complete trash and don't stand a chance against those three top tiers at the highest level

Bears in Tekken are always considered bottom tier. Twt champ last year is a bear, and same guy made it top 8 in a recent major tourney packed with Koreans. Granted, it's a very small sample size, like 1, but that's because no one plays as bears in pro Tekken because guess what, they're bottom tier.
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Key posted...

Jerry_Hellyeah posted...

Tier lists arent a thing in high level fighting game play either. Youll obviously have more entries and representation for the known easy stuff, but the bottom tiers still have their players and matchups in every game.

Look at Kane Blue River in MVC3. Dude plays triple grappler trash and makes you hate him for how OP his application of their limited limited moveset makes them look. This isnt a weirdo showing up every now and then to gimmick people out. This is a guy playing low tier, being analyzed by the best of the best for hours, and still making the one or two tools go all the way.

Tier lists are really only good for making excuses. Theyre REALLY good for that. :)

There will always be those who dedicate themselves to a bad character and have some level of success however a lot of them end up switching to good characters and do a lot better. If you want a example of why tier's matter watch his 2016 evo finals for MvC2. His grapplers couldn't do shit. Doesnt matter how good he is

Thats one set out of how many? Saying he couldnt do shit is one of those excuses that just doesnt need to come up. He can and has taken those teams clean.

Again, some things are easy and will always be gravitated towards. Tier lists dont matter at the bottom because they dont matter there, and they dont matter at the top because its all about playing the matchup and the other player anyway.
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Tiers are definitely a real thing but tier lists tend to be awful, inaccurate, and misinterpreted by the people reading them.
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Theres tiers in every game and the simplified version is:

Top: Very strong and easy to use
Bottom: Weak and hard to use
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Jerry_Hellyeah posted...

Key posted...

Jerry_Hellyeah posted...

Tier lists arent a thing in high level fighting game play either. Youll obviously have more entries and representation for the known easy stuff, but the bottom tiers still have their players and matchups in every game.

Look at Kane Blue River in MVC3. Dude plays triple grappler trash and makes you hate him for how OP his application of their limited limited moveset makes them look. This isnt a weirdo showing up every now and then to gimmick people out. This is a guy playing low tier, being analyzed by the best of the best for hours, and still making the one or two tools go all the way.

Tier lists are really only good for making excuses. Theyre REALLY good for that. :)

There will always be those who dedicate themselves to a bad character and have some level of success however a lot of them end up switching to good characters and do a lot better. If you want a example of why tier's matter watch his 2016 evo finals for MvC2. His grapplers couldn't do shit. Doesnt matter how good he is

Thats one set out of how many? Saying he couldnt do shit is one of those excuses that just doesnt need to come up. He can and has taken those teams clean.

Again, some things are easy and will always be gravitated towards. Tier lists dont matter at the bottom because they dont matter there, and they dont matter at the top because its all about playing the matchup and the other player anyway.

But the whole point of a tower list isnt that you can never win with the character. It's the likely that said character will do well. This one guy doing well doesnt prove tier's dont exist. Him being one of the few doing well is proof they do exist. And that one set shows why his characters are low tier. Yes you can still win with low tiers but it's significantly harder.

People take tiers as saying you cant win eith X low tier character. What it actually means is that x high tier character is more likely to do well and it takes significantly more work to get similar results with the low tier character
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Tiers even exist in single player instances for example. Could I beat a entire pokemon game with just sloth. Yes in fact I watched a YouTube video of a guy soloing pokemon fire red with one. But that's significantly harder than if I wanted to solo fire red with Rayquaza. That's essentially what a tier list is. And when playing a competitive game a lot of players will opt for the easier to win with higher chance of winning character. That's what a tier list is. And no matter how good you are with x character the tier list wont change
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Key posted...

What it actually means is that x high tier character is more likely to do well and it takes significantly more work to get similar results with the low tier character

Yes
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this is the most useless of all the useless internet conflicts
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the meta isn't a thing because bring the player not the class
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Key posted...

Tiers even exist in single player instances for example. Could I beat a entire pokemon game with just sloth. Yes in fact I watched a YouTube video of a guy soloing pokemon fire red with one. But that's significantly harder than if I wanted to solo fire red with Rayquaza. That's essentially what a tier list is. And when playing a competitive game a lot of players will opt for the easier to win with higher chance of winning character. That's what a tier list is. And no matter how good you are with x character the tier list wont change

Yes

These 2 posts: i agree.
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Hm. Tier lists can be entirely subjective. People aren't omniscient. I remember the good DotA days, people would figure out ways to use heroes that would make them a lot more powerful in certain circumstances.

I used to play Lycan when he was considered trash tier and won at high levels all the time. Did the same with Sejuani in LoL when she released and was placed into nearly bottom tier as a hero by most people, went to like diamond 4 playing her almost exclusively that season.

And back in literal season 1 I got to be top 100 in Europe playing mostly Pantheon and Mordekaiser when practically nobody thought them worthwhile.

There is a lot to be said for a skilled player mastering a hero.
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Key posted...

That's what a tier list is. And no matter how good you are with x character the tier list wont change

Not true, even in games without patches, and even without new exploits being found (animation cancels, links opening up from that, etc.), some games have the tier lists change based on usage. Like with my Dissidia Duodecim mention earlier, some characters are really common in tournaments and then being A and B tier in match ups and doing strong because of the top ranking players ending up in the finals helped. But then you'd see some characters who only 2 players used, and so all of the match up number crunching to determine match-up rates were from those 2 players as well as older tournaments. As a result, those 2 were really good and consistent, so they got the characters boosted to B or even A tier at times because they won most of their matches except against hard counters. Thing is, with any other players the characters were at least a full tier lower (B+ with them, C with anyone else). Even taking that in to account, the info they put out there for new people trying to main this characters would result in the character still having a higher win rate than they used to, resulting in their rate still staying higher than it started because of the strategy changing how the character is played from then on. :l
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Lairen posted...

Theres tiers in every game and the simplified version is:

Top: Very strong and easy to use
Bottom: Weak and hard to use

what about strong and hard to use/weak and easy to use?

execution is a pretty big thing too and even pro players drop moves or combos all the time so..
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gunplagirl posted...

Key posted...

That's what a tier list is. And no matter how good you are with x character the tier list wont change

Not true, even in games without patches, and even without new exploits being found (animation cancels, links opening up from that, etc.), some games have the tier lists change based on usage. Like with my Dissidia Duodecim mention earlier, some characters are really common in tournaments and then being A and B tier in match ups and doing strong because of the top ranking players ending up in the finals helped. But then you'd see some characters who only 2 players used, and so all of the match up number crunching to determine match-up rates were from those 2 players as well as older tournaments. As a result, those 2 were really good and consistent, so they got the characters boosted to B or even A tier at times because they won most of their matches except against hard counters. Thing is, with any other players the characters were at least a full tier lower (B+ with them, C with anyone else). Even taking that in to account, the info they put out there for new people trying to main this characters would result in the character still having a higher win rate than they used to, resulting in their rate still staying higher than it started because of the strategy changing how the character is played from then on. :l

A poorly defined tier list isnt a counter argument. A well made tier list would take into account that a higher winrate o a very small player pool does not place the characters as high tier.

Ilishe posted...

Hm. Tier lists can be entirely subjective. People aren't omniscient. I remember the good DotA days, people would figure out ways to use heroes that would make them a lot more powerful in certain circumstances.

I used to play Lycan when he was considered trash tier and won at high levels all the time. Did the same with Sejuani in LoL when she released and was placed into nearly bottom tier as a hero by most people, went to like diamond 4 playing her almost exclusively that season.

And back in literal season 1 I got to be top 100 in Europe playing mostly Pantheon and Mordekaiser when practically nobody thought them worthwhile.

There is a lot to be said for a skilled player mastering a hero.

Like I said just because a character is low tier doesnt mean you cant win with the character. That's not what a tier list means. You could reach rank one on the ladder using a low tier character that doesnt determine the tier of the character and instead speaks about you as a player. Now if you consistently do well and others start copying you and also do well then that characters place on the tier list will probably be reevaluated
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to answer any skill-related questions, just ask what a perfect AI would do with a character, and then which one lets it do the most.
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s0nicfan posted...

For example: grapplers are often low tier but in low level play completely dominate.

I don't think this necessarily disproves tiers as much as shows that maybe the tier list at low level play is not the sae as the tier list at high level play
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AsucaHayashi posted...

Lairen posted...

Theres tiers in every game and the simplified version is:

Top: Very strong and easy to use
Bottom: Weak and hard to use

what about strong and hard to use/weak and easy to use?

execution is a pretty big thing too and even pro players drop moves or combos all the time so..

That would be mid tiers.
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Lairen posted...

That would be mid tiers.

that makes little sense.

how can a supposedly strongest character in the game that also requires the most effort to play be mid tier?
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Denying tiers is the same thing as denying math, and if you deny math, you're just no good at thinking.

That being said, tiers exist at all levels, it's just amorphously responsive to skill levels, and we only ever care about the top.

At the very bottom skill tier, for literal, actual babies who can only just comprehend what it means to win and lose, who's the highest tier in SF2?

Honda, Chun, and Blanka. Why? Because they have mash moves.
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If you don't believe they exist imagine that Sandbag was playable in Smash. He had zero moves and couldn't move. Everyone would agree he is the worst and you can't win with him. Okay, so now just imagine that same idea but not as dramatic. That's the basis for tiers.
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Pancake posted...

to answer any skill-related questions, just ask what a perfect AI would do with a character, and then which one lets it do the most.

This is nonsense. AI has nothing to do with how things work for humans. The "perfect AI" tier list is generally going to be an equal tie between a lot of characters because the optimal play is to never do anything because the AI can react instant with a frame perfect response to anything the opponent presses, so as long as a character has a response to it, they always win. Basically having invincible moves is all that matters because the AI will react to the first frame of every input within its range to auto-win, which has no bearing on actual human gameplay. I'm kind of simplifying a bit but the general point is that AI is useless for determining anything in this kind of discussion
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Panthera posted...

Pancake posted...

to answer any skill-related questions, just ask what a perfect AI would do with a character, and then which one lets it do the most.

This is nonsense. AI has nothing to do with how things work for humans. The "perfect AI" tier list is generally going to be an equal tie between a lot of characters because the optimal play is to never do anything because the AI can react instant with a frame perfect response to anything the opponent presses, so as long as a character has a response to it, they always win. Basically having invincible moves is all that matters because the AI will react to the first frame of every input within its range to auto-win, which has no bearing on actual human gameplay. I'm kind of simplifying a bit but the general point is that AI is useless for determining anything in this kind of discussion

You are assuming a lot of specifics. Iframes, for example, or that all tactics are entirely reactionary.
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Skill only matters. If you lost it's because you are worse than your opponent
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Irony posted...

Skill only matters. If you lost it's because you are worse than your opponent

Irony is a good name.
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Guide posted...

Irony posted...

Skill only matters. If you lost it's because you are worse than your opponent

Irony is a good name.

Guide isn't
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Tier lists are definitely a thing. They're not an excuse for every loss, but they are legitimately valid. Some characters are just better than others and if the game isn't balanced it can be a huge influence on the outcome
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Nerds who want to "objectively" categorize subjective works of art are the lowest tier of consumers.

Heh.

RoboLaserGandhi posted...

Nerds who want to "objectively" categorize subjective works of art are the lowest tier of consumers.

Heh.

This is a great troll but for almost any other genre. Clearly you do not memorize frame data.
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Guide posted...

You are assuming a lot of specifics. Iframes, for example, or that all tactics are entirely reactionary.

If something exists that can counter a specific move, the AI can always react with it instantly. IE high low mixups are impossible to hit on a perfect AI because it can react to the first frame of animation to always block perfectly.
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People who get "triggered" amuse me
Such a stupid word
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Big_Nabendu posted...

People who get "triggered" amuse me
Such a stupid word

This is a good example of a triggered response.
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Panthera posted...

Guide posted...

You are assuming a lot of specifics. Iframes, for example, or that all tactics are entirely reactionary.

If something exists that can counter a specific move, the AI can always react with it instantly. IE high low mixups are impossible to hit on a perfect AI because it can react to the first frame of animation to always block perfectly.

There are unblockables you know. Nines Morganite/Kunzite combination hits high and low simultaneously, and even when the AI is set to block all, they get hit.
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fuzzylittlbunny posted...

There are unblockables you know. Nines Morganite/Kunzite combination hits high and low simultaneously, and even when the AI is set to block all, they get hit.

If there's any way to avoid being in that scenario, a "perfect" AI would avoid it. The point is that "perfect" AI just reacts to the first frame of any animation with whatever the optimal response would be.
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Heres the thing though: better characters have more options on setting up advantageous situations, or getting out of bad ones. Movement, for example, is a big one. Compare Magneto with Hsien-Ko in UMvC3. Magneto can fly, has an 8 way air dash, and both his plink and wavedashes are extremely fast. Hsien-Ko cant fly, has an extremely slow backwards and forward air dash, and her ground dash sucks so bad she cant even plink or wavedash. As for damage, Magneto has extremely strong combos that can be started from his ridiculously good jabs or basically any hit confirm because of his godlike H. Hsien-Ko needs a buttload of meter to get close to what Maggy can do, and it needs to be off a clean hit. Mags just slaps you with his H/j.H and youre in for a world of hurt.

Literally any half-knowledgeable Marvel player will tell you that Vergil, Zero, Doom, Morrigan, Magneto, etc. are leagues better than characters like Hsien-Ko, PW, or Ghost Rider.
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Tiers are essentially just a numerical representation of overall advantage based on win rates and/or component analysis. A lot of people not only don't understand that, they also don't understand that it doesn't account for granular matchup or player data.

Dragonblade01 posted...

Tiers are essentially just a numerical representation of overall advantage based on win rates and/or component analysis. A lot of people not only don't understand that, they also don't understand that it doesn't account for granular matchup or player data.

This. People think Oh *low tier* beat high tier so tiers arent real!
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Key posted...

That's not what a tier list means. You could reach rank one on the ladder using a low tier character that doesnt determine the tier of the character and instead speaks about you as a player

The point is that it's all more nuanced than you seem to think. There is no one single metric.

Some heroes whose numbers might be lower or skills appear less useful will nonetheless shine in certain situations, to the point of being the best under those circumstances.
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